A solution-obsessed culture?
The fundamental problem that the Clarity Lab Method seeks to address for individuals and organisations stems from a pervasive cultural tendency and the limitations of existing frameworks that prioritize speed and solutions over deep understanding. In essence, it challenges a solution-obsessed culture or solution bias that leads to rushing to solutions before usefully defining the problem.
This focus on speed and quick fixes, often reinforced by agile, lean, and rapid iteration methodologies, means that individuals and organisations frequently undervalue or skip the critical phase of problem exploration.
This in turn results in addressing symptoms rather than root causes and can lead to solving the wrong problem precisely.
For individuals, this fundamental problem manifests as:
- Feeling lost in decision-making or stuck in doubt and paralysis, unable to align choices with what truly matters.
- Having unclear priorities or iterating without direction because they haven’t defined their own success criteria.
- Lacking a structured way to think through complex personal decisions, often overwhelmed by information, trade-offs, or external pressures.
- Lacking the tools to understand influences shaping their decisions and make truly autonomous choices, contrasting with the sophisticated tools organisations use.
For organisations (including teams), the problem leads to:
- Strategic drift, reactive decision-making, and a disconnect between strategic intent and operational reality.
- Teams and organisations that struggle with misalignment, unclear objectives, or a lack of collective problem ownership.
- Initiatives and solutions that fail to create meaningful impact or address core user needs, despite significant investment and effort, because they were based on an inadequate understanding of the problem.
- Wasted resources, recurring issues, and missed opportunities for innovation when challenges are addressed superficially.
- High failure rates for new initiatives and strategic decisions due to inadequate problem definition and premature convergence.
- Difficulty navigating increasing complexity and uncertainty, often defaulting to either rigid planning or reactive responses instead of thoughtful navigation.
This core issue is compounded by cognitive biases that hinder effective problem exploration, the influence of the “solution vendor” ecosystem, and the limitations of many existing frameworks that assume a known destination or prioritize systems over individuals.
The Clarity Lab Method addresses this by offering a structured, destination-agnostic framework that prioritises thorough problem exploration before action and integrates systems thinking with self-directed inquiry, empowering individuals and teams to reclaim agency. It makes the case for sustained problem exploration as the foundation for meaningful action, aiming to move beyond reactive decision-making to more intentional, purpose-driven approaches.